What you are about to read is going to absolutely shock you. Rick Wiles has done outstanding work over at TruNews for well over a decade, and now just days before the August 21st solar eclipse he has issued his most ominous warning ever. His warning is not directly related to the eclipse, but I find it extremely interesting that it is coming at approximately the same time, because many consider the eclipse itself to be some sort of warning. I was a TruNews listener way before I ever started The Economic Collapse Blog, and I know Rick’s track record. So I would take what follows very, very seriously.

In 1998, a very unusual series of events resulted in Rick meeting a wonderful Christian lady named Leah Mandell at a conference. Three years later, Leah made a very strange phone call to Rick on August 11th, 2001, which was precisely one month before the 9/11 attacks. When Rick answered his phone, Leah began telling him that “the alarms are ringing”…

She said, “Rick, something very odd is happening today. Alarm bells, everywhere I go today there are alarms ringing, car alarms, burglar alarms, fire alarms, even oven alarms, every place I go, I hear alarms ringing. What’s really strange is people are having trouble turning the alarms off. I go into stores, the alarm is ringing. I go into an office, the alarm is ringing. And they can’t get the things to turn off. The Lord told me, ‘Call Rick Wiles and tell him, “The alarms are ringing, and this time, they will not be turned off.”’”

The moment she said that, Rick’s seatbelt alarm started ringing even though his seatbelt was fastened.

Three days ago on August 11 2017, Rick was driving to his church when suddenly a dead bird fell from the sky and smashed into his windshield. The bird did not fly into his path, but fell out of the sky like it was already dead. Then he received a phone call from Leah Mandell saying, “Rick, the alarms are ringing. Everywhere I go today, alarms are ringing. And there’s something else, dead birds. I’m seeing dead birds. It seems like everywhere I go, there’s a dead bird.”

Then he realized the date was August 11, the same date when Leah had called him sixteen years earlier with a similar warning.

You can dismiss this if you want, but how are you going to explain away what happened 16 years ago?

I don’t know what all of this could mean, but I am definitely concerned about all of the pivotal events that are going to happen over a 40 day period beginning with the solar eclipse on August 21st. Many believe that a turning point for America is right around the corner, and without a doubt the mood of the nation is turning quite sour. Anger and frustration are growing everywhere you look, and it isn’t going to take much to cause a major explosion.

Earlier today, I came across a New Yorker article entitled “Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War?” In that article, it was revealed that many top national security experts believe that there is a significant chance that civil war will erupt in the United States within the next 10 to 15 years…

America’s stability is increasingly an undercurrent in political discourse. Earlier this year, I began a conversation with Keith Mines about America’s turmoil. Mines has spent his career—in the U.S. Army Special Forces, the United Nations, and now the State Department—navigating civil wars in other countries, including Afghanistan, Colombia, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. He returned to Washington after sixteen years to find conditions that he had seen nurture conflict abroad now visible at home. It haunts him. In March, Mines was one of several national-security experts whom Foreign Policyasked to evaluate the risks of a second civil war—with percentages. Mines concluded that the United States faces a sixty-percent chance of civil war over the next ten to fifteen years. Other experts’ predictions ranged from five per cent to ninety-five per cent. The sobering consensus was thirty-five percent. And that was five months before Charlottesville.

I found this to be absolutely fascinating, because I have been repeatedly warning about the exact same thing.

Just look at what is happening today even though the economy is still relatively stable. Once we get to the point where unemployment is rampant and millions of people don’t know where their next meal is coming from, chaos and violence are going to spiral completely out of control.

You can hear Rick Wiles talk about his recent phone call with Leah Mandell right here. I am so thankful for Rick and my other friends over at TruNews. They are good people, and they often report things that nobody else will.

Yes, I understand that some of you may think that this article has been a bit unusual. But the truth is that we are living in very strange times and they are getting stranger by the day.

As I always say, let us hope for the best, but let us also get prepared for the worst.

You can either follow the herd of you can decide to find your own path. One of the things that greatly frustrates me is that so many Americans allow other people to do their thinking for them. We have become a nation of sheeple, and the vast majority of the shepherds that we are relying on for guidance are frauds and imposters. The blind are leading the blind, and we are slowly but surely committing national suicide. If a lot more of us don’t start to learn to think for ourselves, I fear that the vast majority of the population will never wake up until it is far too late.

Let me ask you a very simple question.

What is on your mind today?

If you are not preoccupied with work or with family matters, then you are probably thinking about something that you have been fed through the mainstream media. Just think about this for a few moments. When you are sitting around the dinner table or you are chatting with someone at work, what do you tend to talk about? If you are like most people, many of your conversations will be about something that you saw on the news, a new movie that you just watched, or a sporting event that has just happened.

Most of the time, we believe that certain things are important because someone else has told us that they are important.

And the most prominent voices of all are the six gigantic media corporations that control about 90 percent of the news, information and entertainment that we get through our televisions. I know that statistic is a bit hard to believe, so let me share a little excerpt from a fact checking website called truthorfiction.com…

Summary of eRumor:

Six corporations own 90% of news media companies in America.

The Truth:

This claim is true.

News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS and Comcast own 90% of the TV stations, radio stations, movies, magazines and newspapers that 277 million Americans rely on for news and entertainment.

Of course those six corporate behemoths are owned by the elite of the world, and that is why “the news” never seems to change very much no matter where you get it.

It is imperative that we understand that everyone has an agenda. Every single movie, television show, documentary and news program is trying to shape how you think. Sadly, many people completely disengage their mental filters once they sit down in front of the television, and they just passively consume whatever “programming” that is offered to them without even thinking twice about where it is coming from.

Well, the truth is that at some point a big media gatekeeper somewhere decided that this is something that we should all be focusing on.

But of course there are thousands of pressing issues that would be far more worthy of our attention. The key is to keep us all confused and distracted so that we can never focus on what is truly important.

One of the biggest reasons why we are so easily controlled as a society is because our system of public education does not teach critical thinking skills to our young people. Instead, most educational time is spent on trying to memorize facts and figures that can be regurgitated when it is time to take a test. And any time that is spent on the “why questions” is usually spent forcing “progressive values” down the throats of our students. No wonder our young people are rapidly falling behind the rest of the industrialized world.

Did you ever see the big Hollywood film that was entitled “Idiocracy“? Sometimes I feel like I am permanently trapped inside that movie. If you ask people why they do the things that they do on a daily basis, most of them cannot give you a coherent answer.

I am even discovering that this is true in the world of politics. I have been asking people who they are planning to vote for in different races here in Idaho and why they plan to vote that way. Sadly, most voters cannot give me any sort of a coherent answer. Most of the time people seem to be backing a certain candidate “because that is what everybody else seems to be doing”.

And something that greatly disturbs me is how we tend to put political leaders up on pedestals. If they are on our “team”, we tend to shower them with worship and pretend that they can’t do anything wrong. But if they are on the other team, we tend to throw as much mud as we possibly can.

Instead of being obsessed with personalities, we need to stand on our principles instead. If our leaders do things that are right, then we should praise those actions. But if they do what is wrong, then we should be willing to hold them accountable.

I have been having a number of conversations about “being red-pilled” lately, and if you ever watched “The Matrix” then you know exactly what I am talking about. Most people out there still don’t seem to realize that the world system is built on a pyramid of lies. From a very early age, we are told lie after lie, and once you start to “wake up” one of the first responses is often intense anger.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, I would encourage you to start questioning everything. Once you really start digging, you will quickly discover that many of the “truths” that society takes for granted are not actually so solid after all.

If you seek the truth with all of your heart, you will find it, and it will set you free.

But breaking free of the programming that the world system is constantly feeding us is the first step, and that is not always easy to do.

If you allow someone to pump hours of “programming” into your mind every single day, it is inevitable that it is eventually going to have a major impact on how you view the world. In America today, the average person consumes approximately 10 hours of information, news and entertainment a day, and there are 6 giant media corporations that overwhelmingly dominate that market. In fact, it has been estimated that somewhere around 90 percent of the “programming” that we constantly feed our minds comes from them, and of course they are ultimately controlled by the elite of the world. So is there any hope for our country as long as the vast majority of the population is continually plugging themselves into this enormous “propaganda matrix”?

Just think about your own behavior. Even as you are reading this article the television might be playing in the background or you may have some music on. Many of us have gotten to the point where we are literally addicted to media. In fact, there are people out there that become physically uncomfortable if everything is turned off and they have to deal with complete silence.

It has been said that if you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out. It is the things that we do consistently that define who we are, and so if you are feeding your mind with hours of “programming” from the big media corporations each day, that is going to have a dramatic affect on who you eventually become.

These monolithic corporations really do set the agenda for what society focuses on. For example, when you engage in conversation with your family, friends or co-workers, what do you talk about? If you are like most people, you might talk about something currently in the news, a television show that you watched last night or some major sporting event that is taking place.

Virtually all of that news and entertainment is controlled by the elite by virtue of their ownership of these giant media corporations.

I want to share some numbers with you that may be hard to believe. They come directly out of Nielsen’s “Total Audience Report“, and they show how much news and entertainment the average American consumes through various methods each day…

Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes

Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes

Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes

Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes

When you add all of those numbers together, it comes to a grand total of more than 10 hours.

And keep in mind that going to movie theaters, playing video games and reading books are behaviors that are not even on this list.

What in the world are we doing to ourselves?

The combination of watching live television and watching time-shifted television alone comes to a total of more than five hours.

If you feed five hours of something into your mind day after day, it is going to change you. There is no way around that. You may think that you are strong enough to resist the programming, but the truth is that it affects all of us in very subtle ways that we do not even understand.

And as I mentioned above, there are just six giant corporations that account for almost all of the programming that we receive through our televisions. Below is a list of these six corporations along with a sampling of the various media properties that they own…

Fortunately, those enormous media conglomerates do not have quite the same monopoly over the Internet, but we are starting to see a tremendous amount of consolidation in the online world as well. Just check out these numbers…

Overall, the top 10 publishers — together owning around 60 news sites — account for 47% of total online traffic to news content last year, with the next-biggest 140 publishers accounting for most of the other half, SimilarWeb found.

The biggest online news publisher for the U.S. audience was MSN, owner of MSN.com, with just over 27 billion combined page views across mobile and desktop, followed by Disney Media Networks, owner of ESPN and ABC News, with 25.9 billion.

The battle for the future of this nation is a battle for the hearts and minds of individuals.

And it is hard to see how things will be turned in a dramatically different direction as long as most of us are willingly feeding our hearts and minds with hours of “programming” that is controlled by the elite each day.

The good news is that there are signs of an awakening. More Americans than ever are becoming disenchanted with the mainstream media, and this is showing up in recent survey numbers. Here is one example…

Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans’ skepticism about what they read on social media.

Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions.

As Americans (and people all over the world) have lost confidence in the mainstream media, they have been seeking out other sources of news and entertainment. This has greatly fueled the rise of the alternative media, and the dozens of websites all over the Internet where this article will ultimately be published are examples of this explosion.

You can only enslave people for so long. Ultimately, they will want to break free of the chains that are holding them back and they will want to find the truth.

In this day and age, it is absolutely imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves. If you find that you are still addicted to the “programming” that the giant media corporations are feeding you, I would encourage you to start unplugging from the matrix more frequently.

The average American spends more than 10 hours a day using an electronic device. And most of that activity is not even interactive. The vast majority of the time we are just passively absorbing content that someone else has created. This very much reminds me of the movie “the Matrix”, but with a twist. Instead of humans being forcefully connected to “the Matrix”, we are all willingly connecting ourselves to it. There is a giant system that defines our reality for us, and the length of time that the average American spends connected to it just continues to keep growing. In fact, there are millions upon millions of us that simply do not “feel right” unless there is at least something on in the background. Just think about it. How much time do you spend each day with all electronic devices completely turned off? Thanks to technology, we live at a time when more news, information and entertainment is at our fingertips than ever before, and we are consuming more of it than ever before. But this also gives a tremendous amount of power to those that create all of this news, information and entertainment. As I have written about previously, more than 90 percent of the “programming” that we absorb is created by just 6 enormously powerful media corporations. Our conversations, attitudes, opinions and belief systems are constantly being shaped by those entities. Unfortunately, most of us are content to just sit back and let it happen.

The following numbers regarding the media consumption habits of average Americans come directly from Nielsen’s most recent “Total Audience Report“. The amount of time per day that Americans spend using these devices is absolutely staggering…

Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes

Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes

Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes

Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes

When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into the Matrix.

You have heard the old saying “you are what you eat”, right?

Well, the same applies to what we put into our brains.

When you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out.

In my recent article entitled “It’s Official: Americans R Stupid“, I discussed how the U.S. population is being systematically “dumbed down” and how we are now one of the least intelligent industrialized nations on the entire planet.

A big contributor to our intellectual and social demise is the Matrix that has been constructed all around us.

Virtually every television show, movie, song, book, news broadcast and talk show is trying to shape how you view reality. Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly being bombarded with messages about what is true and what is not, about what is right and what is wrong, and about what really matters and what is unimportant. Even leaving something out or ignoring something completely can send an extremely powerful message.

In this day and age, it is absolutely imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves. But instead, most people seem more than content to let the Matrix do their thinking for them. If you listen carefully, you will notice that most of our conversations with one another are based on programming from the Matrix. We all love to talk about the movie that we just saw, or what happened on the latest reality show, or what some famous celebrity is doing, or what we saw on the news that morning. The things that matter to us in life are the things that the Matrix tells us should matter.

And if someone comes along with information that contradicts the Matrix, that can cause anger and confusion.

I can’t tell you how many times someone has said something like the following to me…

“If that was true I would have seen it on the news.”

To many people, the Matrix is the ultimate arbiter of truth in our society, and so anything that contradicts the Matrix cannot possibly be accurate.

Fortunately, more people than ever are waking up enough to realize that they have a choice.

It is kind of like that moment in the Matrix when Neo is being offered the red pill and the blue pill.

Admittedly, a lot of people that do begin to wake up choose to take the blue pill and go back to sleep.

But there are so many others that are grabbing the red pill. That is why we have seen such an explosion in the popularity of the alternative media in recent years. Millions of people all over the planet now understand that they are not getting the truth from the Matrix and they are hungry for real information.

Yes, the Internet is being used for unspeakable evil, but it can also be used for great good. The Internet has allowed ordinary people like you and I to communicate on a mass scale like never before in history. The Internet has allowed us to reclaim at least some of the power that we have lost to the Matrix. I don’t know how long this period of history will last, so we should make full use out of this great tool while we still have it.

On my own website, I have felt called to mainly focus on economics in recent years. And I will continue to chronicle economic conditions as we descend into the greatest economic crisis in U.S. history. What is coming is going to be worse than 2008, it is going to be worse than the Great Depression, and it is ultimately going to be worse than most Americans would ever dare to imagine.

But I also want to take my readers on a journey down the rabbit hole.

Our world is about to get really, really strange, and I would like to be a light in the chaos.

Yes, I believe that great darkness is coming. But I also believe that a great awakening is coming.

Personally, I believe that it is a great privilege to be alive at this time in human history.

It is a time of great evil, but it is also a time of great opportunity.

It is a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken, but it will also be a time when those that stand for what is right will shine like the stars.

So what do you think about all of this? Please feel free to add your two cents by posting a comment below…